


Full Speed Ahead

by maraudersly



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-03 18:23:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4110631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maraudersly/pseuds/maraudersly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For someone who has been shot, beaten, cut through and drilled into, the girl is a surprising force to contend with when she decides, after three weeks of bed rest, that she has had enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Full Speed Ahead

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [a softer world ficathon](https://swanjolras.dreamwidth.org/312.html), inspired by [this prompt](http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=938). I realise it's very short, but I wasn't entirely sure of my characterisation and didn't want to embarrass myself, so.

You'd think, after everything she has been through, that Raven Reyes would learn to slow down. _One foot in front of the other_ , they say, all the while she wants to run. Perhaps it is a reflection of her personality, the way she can never allow herself to wallow over any one thing too long. Kyle's voice echoes in her ears still, _they can't leave if you push them away first, right?_ , and Raven wishes more than anything that it wasn't true.

It is a beautiful day outside, and she has been growing more and more restless over the passing days. **"Do your sheets itch, too?"** The girl asks Monty one day, as he sits at the foot of her bed. Her mattress has grown increasingly uncomfortable, and the raw cotton sheets were beginning to irritate her skin.

He is wrapped in an over-sized cardigan, the only thing she's seen him wearing since their return, and the boy has a distanced look about him that she recognizes herself in, so they let their conversations fall in neutral ground, because neither one is ready yet to discuss what happened, and maybe they won't ever be. Raven imagines his choice in clothing is partly for comfort, and partly as a reminder.

For someone who has been shot, beaten, cut through and drilled into, the girl is a surprising force to contend with when she decides, after three weeks of bed rest, that she has had enough. She is tired. Tired of staring at the metal ceiling, tired of not managing more than the twenty steps needed to walk out of the med tent, tired of her friends' empty visits where they talk for hours about nothing at all.

Most of all, she is tired of the way everyone skirts around the fact that Clarke has left. It figures, she waited outside that very tent until the blonde recovered, but when Raven finally manages to push Jackson away and go outside, the only thing waiting for her on the crates is a painful reminder of all the things she has lost.

Raven isn't quite sure what to do once she's outside, blue skies shining above and the smell of wet dirt caused by an earlier pitter-patter of falling rain she could hear as she fixed yet another gadget Wick had brought her to pass the time. She wants to ask him for her old brace back, but isn't quite sure how. Sure, the thing was disastrous, but it worked well enough, and until she could find enough scrap to build a better one, it would have to do. But that implied asking for help, and even after everything that had happened, Raven still isn't keen on it.

The girl is still lost in thought over the tragic brace and her mangled leg when the movement of someone sitting down next to her brings her back to the present, and she looks to her left only to be greeted with Bellamy's clenched jaw. It would be funny, the way the gesture makes his whole face look menacing, if it didn't also mean something was wrong. 

To be fair, something _was_  terribly wrong indeed: Clarke's absence was felt by all, and her leadership sorely missed. No matter how much Bellamy played at being in charge, both of them knew all too well he much preferred it when someone else held the reigns. In particular, a specific someone that hadn't been seen or heard of in weeks. Someone that could easily be dead, for all they knew.

Sure, the mountain men were gone, but life on Earth, they had found out repeatedly, had a way of continuously surprising them. And, more often than not, unpleasantly and at a great personal cost.

 **"Just get on with it, will you?"**  He looks solemn, and Raven knows he is about to ask something. Whatever it is, she can already tell by the way he is holding himself that she won't like it, so her hopes of finally getting to blow something up are momentously dampened. 

 **"I am going after Clarke."** Of course he is. Raven had been expecting the words to come out of his mouth every day since they returned to camp, and after every conversation of theirs ended, she couldn't help feel a little disappointed that they hadn't. Somehow, it felt like they were giving up. It felt like the mountain men had, after all, won. Like the lives the had so ruthlessly fought for was now resigned to that little scrapyard they now called home.

Raven hesitates to ask, because on some level she isn't quite sure she's ready to. She is scared that he will tell her she needs to stay back, because it wouldn't be the first time, and because that would mean he figured that, without her leg, she was useless. And the truth was, Raven was terrified of that thought, mostly because it felt like all of her relationships were based on what she could do for them, and if there was ever a time that was no longer accurate, that she would be left entirely and unceremoniously alone.

Alone, with her own thoughts, feelings and memories. She isn't entirely sure she could survive that. Everything else, sure. But that? Not in a million years.

 **"And I need your help."** Bellamy finally manages to say, after what seems to Raven like a long pause of consideration, during which the girl did not miss his fleeting glance at her useless leg. She can hear the implied _if you are up to it_ in the tone of his voice, the words posed as half statement, half question. It would make her mad if his need for her services, whatever they were required for, hadn't clearly outweighed whatever concerns he might have over the girl's mobility.

If she could've managed an excited jump, she would've. It seemed that she would be needing that old, tragic brace after all. **"When do we start?"**


End file.
